Change holder



Feb, M, 19% w. T. MCMURTRY CHANGE HOLDER Filed April 4, 1947 W T MURTRY Patented Feb. 14, 1950 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CHANGE HOLDER Welburn T. McMurtry, San Diego, Calif.

Application April 4, 1947, Serial No. 739,392

4 Claims. (01. 211-89) This invention relates to exposed change holders for keeping ready change accessible. There are times, such as when driving a car, that it is very inconvenient and often impossible to extricate small change to pay for purchases of such items as newspapers, souvenirs, etc. at roadside stands, or for bridge and other toll charges without holding up some traffic, especially when the price is not known until the time the payment is made. It is then necessary to fish around and find the correct coins, which usually hide in the farthest corners of a coin purse, which may in the first place be diflicult to pull out of the pocket, when one is in a sitting position, wedged behind the wheel.

. It is an object of this invention to avoid such difficulty by providing a simple, easily attachable change holder for use over the dash board in an automobile, where a few coins may be kept for immediate use when needed.

Another object is to make this holder of a single sheet of flexible material, cut in a proper form with cooperating coin holding slots in it, whereby when the sheet is folded loosely over in three folds, the upper two folds, will provide a series of registering slots in which the coins may be mounted, and the bottom fold will serve to support the other two folds in their proper relationship.

Another object is to provide the outer end of the sheet material defined above with a tapering extension which may be folded over the back of the holder, to serve as a means for hooking over any suitable upstanding edge, such as the edge of the defroster opening at the bottom of the windshield found in most present day cars.

Another object is to provide a space on the front of the upper fold above referred to, for printed matter or other advertising material, which may be advantageously used by the distributors of these coin holders.

Other and more specific objects will become apparent in the following detailed description of a preferred form of coin holders made in accordance with the present invention, having reference to the accompanying drawing, wherein:

Figure 1 is a plan form of the sheet material making up the coin holder,

Figure 2 is a sectional side view of the coin holder with coins mounted in the slots, and

Figure 3 is a perspective partial view of the dash board section of a car with the coin holder clipped onto the windshield garnish rail at the defroster opening.

The sheet material I used in the present device may be metal, cardboard or other flexible substance, and may be cut in substantially rectangular form as shown in Figure 1, with a tapering flap end 2. A series of coin slots 3 and 4 may be out in this sheet as shown in Figure 1. The slots 2 3 may be large enough to accommodate nickels, the slots 4, dimes or pennies.

The sheet may be creased to facilitate its being folded over in three folds 5, 6 and I, with the flap 2 on the outside, in the manner shown seetionally in Figure 2. In this condition, the registering slots in the folds 5 and 1 are substantially lined up so that the coins may be mounted in the slots of both folds. The slots in the lower of these two folds may be made shorter than the diameters of the corresponding coins 8, so that the coins cannot be inadvertently pushed entirely through both folds and drop out through the lower fold.

The flap 2 is bent over the back of the holder, so that it may serve as an attaching means for clipping over the windshield garnish rail 9 at the defroster opening [0 along the bottom of the windshield H over the dash board I2 of an automobile. The front strip l3 of the upper fold 1 may be used for advertising matter by a distributor of these coin holders as complimentary gifts to advertise his regular business. For this purpose an additional light crease may be formed at I4 to cause this advertising space to slant downwardly in front to improve visibility of the advertising matter to the occupants of the car. It also produces ample room under the lower slotted fold 5 for the depending portions of the coins mounted in the holder. The lower slotted fold in this case preferably extends in width only to this crease at I 4, so as not to obstruct the displacement of the slanting strip downwardly.

The cross-sectional shape of the holder and the slot dimensions are of special importance due to the conditions of service in which the holder is used.

The holder is positioned on the dashboard of the car to one side or the other of the steering wheel to permit ready access thereto, making the holder accessible to one hand of the driver seated at the wheel but difiicult to use the other hand with the holder without moving from the seat. Since the holder is purposed to eliminate the need for changing position relative to the wheel, the holder must be so formed as to permit the needed coin to be selected at sight and be freely removable from the holder by one hand of the driver without his materially changing position. This condition makes the position of the coin in the holder important.

For instance, the coin must be upstanding and a considerable sector thereof must be exposed above the holder, the coin must be grasped on its sides by the thumb and a fingerit would be difficult to grasp at the edge. Actually, the top slots have their length slightly less than the diameter of the coin so that there is a support for the coin in the top wall of the positioned holder, thus assuring that the exposed sector will be of constant dimensions and that at least half the side faces of the positioned coin will be exposed.

Due to car vibrations in service, the coin, to remain upstanding and in place, must have a further support below and spaced from the top. Simply resting the lower edge of a coin on a surface would permit the coin to shift to canted position in presence of car vibrations, thus aftion in the folded holder, a registering slot formation of said upper and intermediate walls combinedly forming a support for an upstanding individual coin with a material portion of the coin exposed'above the upper wall to-thereby provide a plurality of upstanding coins in individually spaced relation and visually exposed for rapid fecting its exposure dimensions and grasping'position. To avoid this, the wall is also formed with slots positioned in alinement with the top slots, with the spacing of the two walls sufiici'ent to prevent rocking of the coin, with the latter slot length equal to the length of the coin chord corresponding to the position of wall 5 This permite the coin to be positioned with the sides of the coin loose relative to the side edges of the slots and at the same time affords an edge support for the coin at two spased-apart points on each side of a vertical diameter of the coin, supporting it in such manner that while freely movable upwardly, the normal vibrations of the car will not displace it from the holder.

The intermediate unperforated bottom wall has no physical contact with the coin but is of service as a protecting or safety member or barrier in that it prevents any liability of coins being displaced by the hand or knee of a person occupying a position which places a knee below the positioned holder. The portion of the coin below wall 5 is between this wall and the bottom wall, so that pressure cannot be applied in this zone to raise the coin from its seat on the top and intermediate wall. The outer front face of such lower flap can additionally provide a space for advertising matter, if desired.

As is apparent, the spacing between slots is sufiicient to accommodate the end of a thumb or a finger, since these must be able to grasp one coin without disturbing adjacent coins. The width of the slot is such as to freely receive the coin and permit its removal without need for breaking down frictional resistance, since presence of the latter would require both hands for removing a coin.

Obviously, any other number of slots suitably arranged for any denominations of coins may be provided in this device, as may be desired, without departing from the spirit and scope of this invention, as defined in the appended claims.

What is claimed is:

1. A change holder formed from a blank of sheet material, said holder blank being dimensioned for folding on parallel folding lines into an open-ended elongated formation with the width of the blank providing the length of the holder and with the folding efiective to provide a three-wall formation in cross section of the holder, spaced zones of the blank forming the intermediate and upper walls of the holder with the lower wall of the holder formed from an intervening portion of the blank, the body portions of said walls being generally free from contact with adjacent walls, the upper and intermediate walls each having a plurality of slot formations with the slots in spaced relation, the slots of said walls beingrelatively positioned as to present corresponding slots of the two walls to be in registraindividual visual selection under service conditions-said blank including an extension from the upper wall adapted to be folded downwardly and adapted to cooperate with a supporting element to support the holder in service position.

2. A holder as in claim 1 characterized in that the length of a coin-receiving slot of at least the intermediate wall is materially less than the diameter of the 'coin which is supported'thereby, whereby the positioned coin will be maintained in its upstanding condition and visually exposed above the upper wall, the length of the coin-receiving slots of'the upper wall being greater than the length of the corresponding slots of the inter mediate wall but slightly less than the length of a diameter of the coin, the width of correspondin slots being slightly in excess of the thickness of the coin to be received by such corresponding slots to thereby permit free movement of a coin into and out of such slots, the spacing between adjacent slots being su'lficient to permit side faces of a coin to be grasped by thumb and finger.

3. A holder as in claim 1 characterized in that the aggregate of slot formations is such as to present holding means for at least three denominations of coins with a slot formation individual to a selected one of the denominations to thereby present an aggregate but individual display of the denominations with the coins in spaced-apart relation, the totality of slot formations having at leasttwo of such formations'for each of such denominations, the denominations including dimes, nickels and pennies.

4. A holder as in claim 1 characterized in that the lower wall is imperforate and extends arouately downward toward the front of the holder with such front formed from the intervening portion of the blank with a folded connection with both the upper and the lower walls and providing a surface capable of receiving advertising matter, said arc'u-ate downturned portion and said front forming a protecting barrier below the'positloned coins to prevent dislodgement thereof by pressure applied to the coins within the coin zones from below the intermediate wall.

- WELBURN T. McMURTRY.

REFERENCES CIT-ED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,691,781v Meyer Nov. 13, 1928 1,787,222 Warner Dec. 30, 1930 2,083,117 Cunningham June 8, 1937 2,098,420 Jackson Nov. 9, 1937 2,189,323 Noonan Feb. 6, 1940 2,305,332 Ullman Dec. 15, 1942 2,344,339 Zwald Mar. 14, I944 

